


Dusty Trail

by astrangerenters



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 16:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1654979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Selphie was doing her best not to break into hysterical laughter, merely nodding as Chet offered them each a pathetically thin muslin towel to clean their faces. Her partner for this mission, however, looked about ready to take her whip and crack it across Chet’s well-meaning face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dusty Trail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eerian_sadow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/gifts).



> Prompt: Two opposite personality SeeDs get stuck together for days in a safe house after a mission (due to a Plot Device such as a storm) and have to cohabitate without killing each other.
> 
>  
> 
> Ahhh, this probably wasn't as "opposite personality" as I'd hoped but I think Selphie and Quistis can both use more fic! This was supposed to be more wacky, but then Quistis wanted to have some backstory instead, oops. I hope you will enjoy, eerian_sadow!

“Sure is a shame ‘bout them pretty clothes,” Chet apologized as he helped them back to the mules. “But we do appreciate all you’ve done to help.”

Selphie was doing her best not to break into hysterical laughter, merely nodding as Chet offered them each a pathetically thin muslin towel to clean their faces. Her partner for this mission, however, looked about ready to take her whip and crack it across Chet’s well-meaning face.

Dusty Trail was a cluster of houses deep within the Dingo Desert. The residents liked to call it a town, but upon arrival Selphie had felt that was a bit of a reach. It had been a three hour drive from the desert’s one and only train station to get there, and not in one of the fancy cars available for renting in Deling City or Balamb Town. Their mission’s transport budget had rented them the use of a sputtering pick-up truck that had probably been manufactured when someone Cid Kramer’s age had still been in diapers. Not that Selphie wanted to imagine Cid Kramer in diapers but…

“Miss Trepe, you still got a little bit of viscera hangin’ there on that clip in your hair,” Chet was saying then, offering up another of his far from spotless cleaning cloths.

Selphie intercepted it before Chet could volunteer to help with the cleaning, forcibly turning Quistis around and dabbing at the sticky guts dirtying her hair. It had been a particularly nasty beast threatening the fine folks of Dusty Trail, and the Galbadian government had contracted out with SeeD since it had its hands full. Lunar Cry monsters were still a menace no matter where you turned. You could only kill so many at a time before wearing yourself out, and little places like Dusty Trail didn’t exactly have monster control units ready to be dispatched.

She’d been excited to rough it a bit, to get out of Garden and hit the desert. It was a beautiful part of Galbadia, the mountains ringing the horizon, the different terrain. Selphie had spent so many years bundled up, instigating snowball fights, that the desert still seemed rather exotic. Of course there’d been a few blips along the way, what with getting stuck in the desert prison out here or the equally arid slab of land where that stupid missile base had been. But overall her opinion on the desert was still fairly positive, although the heat was a force to be reckoned with just like any monster.

But the monster that had been snatching up helpless little creatures in Dusty Trail was now defeated, a towering beast with long arms and razor sharp claws. A few Cure spells had already taken care of their scratches, but what she and Quistis hadn’t expected was for the creature to, well, to completely BOOM! EXPLODE! upon being killed. Selphie had thought it was pretty darn neat, seeing the result of their handiwork, but apparently Quistis didn’t feel the same. They’d trudged back from the creature’s lair, blood and guts dripping from them, and Quistis looked ready to say something truly awful. Her experience in Dusty Trail so far had been anything but positive.

Well, it didn’t help that there’d been the paperwork mix-up from the very start. Quistis Trepe was the type of person who would find a paperwork mix-up to be a sin of the highest order. They’d arrived, truck backfiring, to meet up with Dusty Trail’s mayor, Alma Dunwiddle. But Mayor Alma Dunwiddle was just the name the Galbadian government office had on file, the desert towns not ranking too highly in interest in Deling City. Apparently Alma had ditched town months back, off to Esthar as so many others were. The tourism industry there was really booming. But it meant all the authorization paperwork Quistis had in tow would need to be redone, refiled, whatever it was. Selphie thought it would have been easier to just cross out Alma Dunwiddle’s name and replace it with Chet’s. Quistis did not.

Chet “Just Call Me Chet” Hodgin was the acting mayor of Dusty Trail, was going on 70 years old give or take a few, and found Quistis and Selphie’s arrival to be the most interesting thing in months. He lived in a two-room clapboard house in the middle of town and had encouraged them to park the rental truck in front of it. It was his mules they’d ridden out to the creature’s lair and his hospitality they were enjoying. He was an old-fashioned sort and kind of reminded Selphie of some of the older men who’d lived in the small towns around Trabia Garden. The sort of men who didn’t believe a woman was capable of doing much more than sewing buttons or cooking dinner. The sort of men that made Quistis crack her knuckles to keep from cracking her whip.

“You sure you girls are the ones from the Garden?” 

“You waitin’ for any reinforcements? Don’t want you girls gettin’ squeamish ‘round that beastie.” 

“Now don’t you worry your pretty head ‘bout them papers, Miss Trepe. Chet’ll get it all sorted before you depart.”

Once Selphie had gotten most of the gunk out of Quistis’ hair, they got back on the mules and headed back for town. It seemed a lot of desert towns out here relied on desert-bred chocobos to get places, but Dusty Trail preferred mules. They were cheaper and according to Chet, “didn’t smell that bad after you got used to ‘em.” Selphie and Quistis still hadn’t, although Selphie was inclined to think that her mule, Mr. Jenkins (Chet’s naming) was the sweetest creature despite his odor. Quistis, blood-soaked and furious astride her mule, did not seem to share the same opinion.

Dusty Trail was just appearing on the horizon when Selphie pointed at the sky. “Hey Chet, is it normally that color around here?”

“It sure is not, Miss Tilmitt, good eye.”

Selphie thought she saw Quistis’ eye twitch. When they’d left a few hours back, it was a sunny day, a few stray clouds drifting through the blue. But now the skies just past the town were a hideous brown color. Was it close to sunset or something? Selphie had never seen a sky like that before.

“Looks like a bad one,” Chet said with a sigh, giving his mule a pat on the rump. “We best get the animals inside.”

“About the paperwork…” Quistis started, but the closer they drew up to town, the scarier the sky was looking.

“Chet, about the sky,” Selphie interrupted again, urging Mr. Jenkins along. The wind was picking up too, sending more specks of dust and dirt up into her face. “Chet?”

“Storm coming,” he announced, clambering off his mule and leaving Quistis and Selphie behind. He hurried as best he could with his limp and his girth, reaching an old bell along Dusty Trail’s main street. He rang it, and it let out a noisy clang. The handful of folks still in the streets got moving, gathering up children and closing up shop.

Quistis slunk down from her mule, her movements stiff because her clothes were more like monster guts with a cloth lining by this point. Selphie hoped she wasn’t overly fond of that outfit, seeing as how that stuff was never going to come out of it. “Mr. Hodgin!” she called. “Mr. Hodgin, the paperwork!”

“Quisty, be serious.” She gestured again at the sky. Whatever it was, it was looking worse by the minute. It wouldn’t be long before it hit. “He said a storm is coming.”

A look Selphie hadn’t seen in some time appeared on Quistis’ face, the kind of look Selphie expected that Quistis made back when she was an instructor at Garden and caught someone cheating on an exam. “I am getting out of here, and I am getting out of here now,” Quistis said, her voice going so low and ominous that Selphie half expected a Thundara spell to shoot her way if she disagreed.

Selphie enjoyed challenges, and the thought of driving through a sand storm admittedly got her a bit excited, but it was looking so bad that even her usual thirst for danger was growing muted. Perhaps she was growing up? Or maybe it was remembering how crappy that truck had handled, how they’d barely gotten here from the train station and that was in good weather…

Chet came hobbling back, urging the two of them to lead the mules on. “Gotta get ‘em inside, Miss Trepe. I know you city types with your cars and such know about putting them inside when a storm’s brewing. Animals aren’t much different, just more poop.” He laughed at that for some reason, even as Quistis nagged him the whole way to the stables behind the general store about signing the paperwork so they could leave.

It wasn’t until they had the stable locked up that Chet started chuckling at Quistis’ protests. “Miss Trepe, you aren’t going nowhere in that storm, no ma’am.”

Quistis had her hands on her hips, squeezing herself to keep from throttling their client. “Mr. Hodgin…”

“Chet, girl. Now I told you already, we ain’t about that here, you just call me Chet…”

“Mr. Hodgin, SeeD is a worldwide operation run on efficiency. It is inefficient for us to stall after the completion of a task. Many more towns have need of our assistance and…”

“That is a sand snapper coming, Miss Trepe,” Chet insisted, patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t make me tie you up in the stable like one of them mules. You’re more stubborn than they are. Not safe to drive, not now and not ’til that snapper’s run through.”

“A sand snapper?” Quistis grumbled. “Mr. Hodgin, we have done what we came to do, and I appreciate your…chivalrous views and thoughts for our safety, but we are trained SeeDs and can drive through a sand storm, snapper, whatever you believe is coming…just a moment, sir!”

Chet was already walking away, arm around Selphie’s shoulder. “Now let’s fix you girls up in Alma’s place. She didn’t pack no more than a bag and left the rest behind, so you should be fine to stay there ’til it’s over.”

Selphie had been on quite a streak lately, twenty-six days on and four off in the last month. A little break to wait out the storm might be a good thing. Even SeeDs needed a day off, not that Quistis Trepe was the sort of person who agreed with that kind of logic. Selphie considered Quistis to be a logical person in most things, but when things didn’t go her way, her old bossy streak emerged in a particularly ugly fashion.

There was more dust kicking up, and Chet put the two of them to work boarding up the windows of Alma’s house. With each smack of her hammer, Selphie could hear Quistis complaining about deserts and mules and monster guts. Once the house was storm-ready, Chet let them inside and brought over a few jugs of well water, some candles, and some chocobo jerky. He smiled and shut the door, leaving them inside.

As soon as he was gone, Quistis sank to her knees on the threadbare rug. “Selphie, if we make a run for the truck, how fast do you think you can drive it out of this dump?”

Selphie crouched down beside her friend, finding a place on her shoulder that wasn’t covered in dried monster guts and patting gently. “You know I love a challenge, but is it really that bad to wait out the storm? I don’t think Squall’s gonna hold an act of Hyne against you for not completing the mission in a timely fashion. And I don’t think the world is going to go nuts without us for a day. We’re safe here, alright?” She leaned back, rocking back and forth a bit. “Come on, it’s like a sleepover! I love sleepovers.”

Quistis scowled at her. “I don’t.”

Selphie laughed, getting to her feet and hauling over one of the massive water jugs. “Go on, you look disgusting. Go clean up, you’ll feel much less grumpy when you’re done.”

Quistis’ grumbling grew quieter but didn’t entirely disappear as they each took turns filling up Alma Dunwiddle’s porcelain tub with water. It wasn’t cold but it wasn’t warm, but Selphie was happy to get out of her clothes and scrub all the monster off of her. Bits of it had slunk everywhere - armpits, behind her knees, at the base of her skull. She emerged from the bathroom wrapped up in one of Alma Dunwiddle’s bathrobes, an oversized pair of plaid pajamas on underneath. Dunwiddle had been a large woman, and she and Quistis both were near drowning in her clothes. Didn’t help that they had old lady smell to boot, but Selphie couldn’t complain. Quistis was doing that enough for the both of them and had all day. 

The wind had picked up considerably since Selphie had gotten in the tub. Dusty Trail was under attack by the “sand snapper” and Selphie was glad they were safe inside, not out in the truck trying to outrun it. It seemed so odd that Quistis had been the first to suggest such a thing. Of the two of them, Quistis had always been patient, calm. Not the type to lose her temper over something so silly, and Quistis was never, ever overtly rude as she’d been today. From the minute they’d gotten the assignment Quistis hadn’t seemed herself. At first Selphie had thought it was having to go so far, to the middle of nowhere, and then maybe it was the paperwork problem, and then maybe it was Chet’s old-fashioned thinking.

But even with her hair clean and in a fresh change of clothes, Quistis was still moody, still looking at the door every few seconds as though she was going to bust right through it as soon as the wind outside stopped howling. Well, whatever it was, Selphie thought, Quistis wasn’t going to talk about it, at least not yet. 

Selphie saw that Quistis hadn’t bothered yet, so she lit a few candles and grabbed the packet of chocobo jerky, biting it open with her teeth. With the candlelight, there wasn’t much to see. Alma Dunwiddle had lived simply as most people out here seemed to. A few small bookshelves, filled with more knickknacks than books and some super creepy dolls with yarn for hair. A couple hard chairs, a sofa that had probably been comfortable once upon a time. Selphie munched on her jerky, forced some of it into Quistis’ hand.

“Alright we’re going to play a game!”

Quistis munched mournfully on her jerky. “I don’t like your kind of games.”

Selphie grinned. “You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

“If it’s anything but Triple Triad, count me out.”

“You just want to play Triple Triad because you know you’re going to win.” Selphie leaned back against the sofa, pulling her knees up to her chest. “You are so not fun to play that game with. Even Squall will lose once in a while to make me feel better.”

Quistis finally, maybe for the first time that day, allowed herself a tiny smile. “I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Yeah yeah, sure.” Selphie swallowed a bite of jerky, chased it down with a sip from her mug of water. “How about Truth or Dare?”

“Absolutely not. Because half the dares in a place like this would end with me dressing up in more of this old woman’s clothes.”

Selphie sighed. “But didn’t you see that girdle? That would have looked great on you!”

“We could play the Quiet Game,” Quistis suggested, “in which we both take a good long time reflecting on our lives in utter silence.”

“Too bad Squall isn’t here, he’d totally win.” She could see that Quistis’ irritation about being stuck in Dusty Trail was changing into irritation about being stuck in Selphie’s company, but that didn’t deter her one bit. “How about Bed, Wed, or Dead? I’ll start with Zell, Irvine, and, hmm, Squall’s kind of out of the running now, you know, but…”

“I don’t want to play Bed, Wed, or Dead if our friends are going to be the contestants…”

“Irvine is totally a Bed, not a Wed. I mean, doesn’t he just scream ‘commitment-phobic’ to you? Really…”

“Selphie…”

“I just remembered that Zell ate my last Dream Cake last week! He is getting fast-tracked to the Dead category!”

“Selphie, I don’t want to play this!”

She shut up, seeing the flash of anger in Quistis’ face. Real anger, something rarely directed her way and never from Quistis. But it was gone soon enough. “I’m sorry,” Quistis mumbled, gathering up her oversized nightgown and getting to her feet. “I’m going to lie down. If the storm lets up, we can leave immediately.”

With that, she was gone, slamming the bedroom door behind her. Selphie waited until she heard the squeak of the springs in Alma Dunwiddle’s bed before she let out a breath. What had she said? What had she done? Seriously, this was so weird. She frowned, wishing she could crack Quistis open and figure out where the screw was loose today. It was easier to fix the Ragnarok than her own friend.

Instead she blew out the candles, grabbing a blanket and curling up on the old sofa. So much for their sleepover. She listened to the sand storm, hearing the bell in the center of town clang once in a while if the wind hit it just right. At least the storm had come after they’d already defeated the monster. Everyone in town had plenty of time to get inside and stay safe, all the animals were locked up so the storm didn’t hurt them. They weren’t stuck out in the truck in this, lost and without food. Despite his oddness, Chet had seen to it that they were safe and had enough to eat. 

All in all, they had a lot to be thankful for that night. So then why was Quistis still so angry? Getting stuck overnight was an inconvenience, not the end of the world. And they’d been through the end of the world, truly. This was nothing. Quistis was acting like Ultimecia herself had come back and smacked them all with a sand storm. “WHAT, YOU KANT HANDLE A LITTLE SAND?” she’d say.

Despite the noise, Selphie managed to sleep, although bad news awaited come morning as well. The wind was howling louder than the night before, and cracking open the front door only revealed a dusty world beyond, blasts of sand blowing into their eyes until they managed to slam it shut and bolt it again. A sand snapper was no short little storm. With the realization that they were still stuck, Quistis barely even spoke, sitting most of the day with a book and a candle while Selphie tried to leave her alone, trying to keep from getting cabin fever by doing some stretches and sit-ups, finding some scratch paper and a pencil and doodling ideas for Garden Festivals of the next two decades.

But by the end of that second day, when their jerky stores were dwindling and Selphie had gone hours without speaking, her own irritation was on the rise. This had become the opposite of fun, with Quistis sulking like a child for over a day now. Selphie was hurt, Selphie was confused, and no amount of sit-ups was going to help any longer.

She finally burst into the bedroom where Quistis had holed up, squinting at a book in the candlelight. “You don’t even have your glasses!” Selphie finally complained, hands on her hips, mostly to keep the pajama bottoms from falling off her butt. “You’d rather sit in here and ruin your eyes than talk to me! Is it so bad, talking to me?”

Quistis looked up. “Selphie…”

“No, I’m not leaving this time,” she said, stomping her feet. “You’re being a real brat, and I should know, because you are using all the tricks I used when I was a kid and didn’t want to do my homework. But you’re, like, a little old to be acting like this. Yeah, this town is odd and we’ve got sand in our bras. Yeah, Chet doesn’t think women can tie their own shoes. Yeah, a paperwork mix-up sucks. And yeah, getting soaked in monster blood is a huge downer, but all of that combined is nothing compared to how you’re reacting. Because the Quistis Trepe I know is not someone who acts this way. The Quistis Trepe I know would at least talk to me. So tell me why everything sucks for you right now, and we’ll get it fixed.” 

Quistis sighed, setting her book down. “You’re right.”

Selphie blinked. “Huh?” She had expected Quistis to go full-Squall and just dismiss her outright again.

“You’re right, I’m being awful, and I’m sorry.” The bed squeaked a bit as she crossed her legs, giving Selphie space to sit down. She did so, waiting as patiently as she could.

It seemed like ages before Quistis looked up again, meeting her eyes. “I was adopted. From the orphanage, you know.”

“Right.”

“And it didn’t work out.”

“You’ve said.” 

And that was pretty much all she had ever said, Selphie knew. They all had the suckiness of that in common, the orphanage gang. Of all of them, Zell had it the best. Ma Dincht was amazing, loving, kind. The mother everyone wanted. But most of them had just ended up at the Gardens. Selphie had made friends, sure, plenty in Trabia, but it had been tough. Really, really tough. And despite what the GF had done to them, their memories were finally returning. Those first lonely years were slowly trickling back.

“It didn’t work out,” Quistis repeated, drumming her fingernails against the book. “I was in a town like this, out here.”

“What, the desert? You?”

“Yes, the desert, me.” Quistis took a breath and continued. “I came from the orphanage. We had the beach, the games, each other, all that. I got taken from that and put out here, so far from everything. I mean, obviously Centra was far from everything, but we had Matron. Here I…I don’t even know why they took me in. The couple who adopted me, they fought all the time. She wanted to move, to Deling or Timber, anywhere but here. Now that she had a child. He didn’t. He never did anything but drink. So all they did was argue. There were no other kids around, there was nothing to do. I hated it. I really hated it.”

“They didn’t…” Selphie swallowed. “They never…”

“No,” Quistis said immediately. “No, they never hurt me. Not ever. But by the time I was 10 they clearly couldn’t afford to keep me around, and I didn’t even complain when they shipped me off to Balamb. Galbadia Garden was closer, but maybe they figured they wouldn’t change their mind if I was a whole continent away.”

Selphie didn’t want to cry for her friend, but it was tough imagining someone like Quistis dealing with that. Starting out an orphan, getting adopted, then another rejection. Even if Quistis hadn’t liked the people who’d adopted her, getting sent away so easily had to have hurt. “I’m sorry.”

“Garden was good for me,” Quistis admitted. “After having nothing to do, I suddenly had lots to do. So much that I kind of went overboard…”

A SeeD by 15, an instructor by 17. No kidding. “But I’m guessing the desert is not your favorite place.”

“I didn’t even realize how awful I’ve been acting,” she admitted. “I just…from the moment we got here, it’s felt so much like that other town, the isolation, everything’s broken down, the dust everywhere…maybe I just got stuck in that memory, those years when I was just so angry all the time. I wanted to be anywhere but here. But I shouldn’t have let it get so bad. I shouldn’t have been so terrible to Mr. Hodgin…”

“Chet,” Selphie interrupted. “He probably heard you and is on his way over here to remind you to just call him Chet!”

Quistis finally laughed, shaking her head. “He’s not so bad, is he? Him and his mules.”

“Miss Trepe,” Selphie said in an imitation of Chet’s voice, “The mule is a lovin’ creature, the best friend a man can have ‘round these parts…”

“Selphie, don’t even go there…”

“What? I would never imply…”

Quistis was truly laughing now. “I don’t want to think about that man and his mules, stop!”

She held out one of the last bundles of jerky. “Truce, then?”

“Truce.”

—

“You’re a good mule, Mr. Jenkins,” Selphie said, patting the creature on the nose. “Now you take care.”

She left the stable behind, finding an annoyed Quistis fussing with a cloth on one of the pickup truck’s side mirrors. With Chet’s help they cleaned most of the dirt and dust out of the truck bed and had gotten all of it out of the engine block. They had to replace the battery, but otherwise the old thing was running again and ready to take them back to the desert train depot. A two-day sand storm wasn’t enough to take out the truck for good.

“Now if we see any more trouble, I’ll be hollerin’ for SeeD right quick,” Chet said, patting Selphie on the shoulder, the touchy-feely old coot. “Won’t even bother to go through the Galbadian government, buncha’ pencil pushers!”

Quistis, for the first time this trip, held her tongue and only offered a tight-lipped smile that was pretty much screaming “Selphie Tilmitt, if you don’t get in this truck right now…”

She obeyed, shaking Chet’s hand and hopping into the driver’s seat. “You call any time now, Chet!”

“And we’ll be sure to just send Zell,” Quistis mumbled quietly, barely audible over the noisy truck engine.

It would probably be days before they got all the sand out of their clothes, but Quistis was Quistis again. The grump had finally taken off and left the normal, only slightly bossy Quistis Trepe in her place. The world was right again. 

They got halfway to the train station before either of them realized they were still dressed in Alma Dunwiddle’s bathrobes.


End file.
